I one day will die - we are always dying at times,
I wish death not on my own accord, but by a knife to my spine:
The murdered are spared, given tickets to paradise,
But I won’t speak of the living, but of the rested.

My face will hit the dirt, turn on its good side,
And my fallen soul will gallop up the hill on a stolen jade horse.
In those glorious gardens of paradise, I will gather purple-pale apples.
However, these gardens are guarded and they shoot you between the eyes.

Galloping up, I see before my eyes no kind of paradise:
Only a barren desert and all around - infinite nothingness.
And in between rise cast-iron gates and
A massive Ètape of five thousand sitting on their knees.

How my horse whines! I calm him with affectionate words,
But the burrs have almost but torn away his mane.
The old man gatekeeper struggles with the bolt too long -
Failing to open it, he grunts and grumbles, and leaves.

And the exhausted mass produce not one squeak.
They squat, their knees growing numb from it all.
A den of thieves, brothers, I hear the pealing of bells!
Returning full circle, He hangs crucified on the cross.

Blessings have been bestowed upon me, would I have wanted more?
Just my friends and my wife - let her fall on my coffin.
I will pick for them some of those pale apples,
But the gardens are guarded, and they shoot you between the eyes.

I know this old man by the tears upon his worn cheeks:
It is Saint Peter - he is an apostle, I am just a fool.
Here is the orchard, with a lot of frozen apples,
But the gardens are guarded, and they have just started shooting between the eyes.

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

So I drive my horse away, from this wretched hellhole.
Though the horses are begging for oats, I can’t stop biting at the bit.
Along the cliff, with a lash, on the precipice, clutching apples
For you I bring them: you are waiting for me from paradise.